Episode 4.13: Rumors, Bargains, and Lies

This was a great episode! And not just a great episode but BOTH HALVES of a great episode. The A plot and the B plot both worked, and worked well together. There were a couple of episodes lately that were enjoyable, but this is the first since THE LONG NIGHT that I genuinely loved. Hooray!

First we get the A plot, which begins with Sheridan acting so weird in the comissary Ivanova thinks he might be drunk. He has to unite the League of Unimportant Aliens, and doesn't think he can do it--last time they barely came together at all, and that was with the Shadows staring them down in open war. How can he possibly unite them without a similar threat? The answer becomes clear very early in the episode, but it's still fun to watch it come together: he does exactly what he said he would do, but gets very mysterious about it, thus convincing the Unimportant Aliens that he's hiding something from them. The pacing is great: sometimes we see him plant a half-truth without knowing how it will pay off; other times we see a half-truth develop right in front of us, paying off at the same time. My favorite was when Sheridan said he needed to talk to Franklin, and we didn't know why, and then several scenes later alien ambassadors discuss their paranoid theories and Franklin walks in on them, casually asking for as much blood stores as they can spare "just in case they need it." It's perfectly executed, and Franklin can deliver subtle humor better than anyone in the cast, and it all comes together flawlessly. At the end of the episode the Unimportant Aliens demand that Sheridan do exactly what he wanted to do in the first place, and he asks them not to throw him into the briar patch, and they insist, and he walks out of the room whooping in joy. It's great.

The one downside to the episode comes when Sheridan asks Londo to lie for him (the only outright lie in the plot, in fact), and Londo responds in the most tortured, circuitous, Londo-esque way possible. He starts to say "sometimes I understand you, but why are you asking me to lie?" but he gets lost somewhere in the middle and goes on a tangent so inane I'm amazed they gave it any air time at all, let alone several minutes of it. Put another checkmark in the "Londo fanservice" column, I guess; I continue to not understand how anyone can be a fan of the show's most obnoxious character, but lots of people are, so I will move on. The one good part of this conversation was a pop culture reference to something that takes place in their past but our future--a sitcom called Rebo and Zooty. So many of these shows insist on only ever showing pop culture from Earth's 80s and 90s, but B5 is honestly pretty good at making up newer references. It was a throwaway line, but I loved it.

The B plot is less fun but has a lot more gravitas, thanks to the heavy involvement of two of my favorite characters in the series: Lennier and Neroon. I would watch the two of them order food off a menu, but getting to see them glare and connive and moralize is a treat above and beyond. The payoff is, to be honest, kind of a let down ("Delenn wasn't evil after all, and we've created our own problem through baseless paranoia!"), but getting there was fun, and Lennier's brutally gentle takedown of the Religious caste idiots was one of the series' best monologues. IN YOUR FACE, RELIGIOUS CASTE IDIOTS. The explanation of how and why Lennier saved everybody was as dumb as this show ever gets, but his reasoning and his response was perfect. He is the absolute hero of this show, and might very well end up as my favorite character this season, even edging out (I'm as shokced as you are) G'Kar.

Neroon delights me because he is an honorable antagonist--he doesn't like Delenn or her plans, but he's not fighting against her he's fighting for Minbar. That puts him into a lot of situations where he opposes our heroes, and a lot of situations where he supports them, such as the fantastic moment in GREY 17 IS MISSING where he cedes control of the Rangers to Delenn because he knows it will be better for the Minbari overall. So he agrees to work with Delenn, and he does so in his wonderfully sneery way, but then at the end he slips off the ship and calls his boss and seems to be planning to betray Delenn and attack the Religious Caste. This is either an actual betrayal or part of Delenn's plan, and honestly I hope it's the latter because I like Neroon so much, but even if it's just a betrayal I trust that he's doing it for good reasons that will help the Minbari as a whole, even if they hurt the Religious Caste in the short term. Neroon is great.

Also: I'm glad we got a bunch of Voice of the Resistance stuff, because they were edging toward Ranger territory--ie, we always HEAR about them doing neat things without ever actually seeing them do neat things. And I still worry that we have at least one foot in that door as it is, but at least we get to see some small portion of the broadcasts and the effect they're having. Plus: more Ivanova is always good.

So, in other words: Babylon 5 is back in top form. A compelling story, grounded in the characters, with awesome guest performances and an annoying Londo scene. Just like the good old days.

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